DEBATE
It appears to me that no child left behind is leaving many children in it's wake. I am the parent of a gifted child, IQ of 142, whose child is in public school entering the third grade, and for the past two years she has learned social skills, which I admit are rather important, but hardly anything academically that she did not already know prior to starting each grade. How are we expected to maintain our role throughout the world when we aren't tapping into our potential? Is the goal to lower the bar so everyone can get over or raise the bar and force our children to rise to their full potential? Given the dismal state of our educational system, what do you propose to reverse this downhill trend and improve our children's education, especially when compared to that of other countries?

Sent by erika | 11:50 PM ET | 06-27-2007

Mrs Martin:

As I listened to the debate and how the Democrats talked about all that was NOT being done because of the War I could no help but to wonder why none of the questioners bothered to make note that THERE WAS A TIME "BEFORE THE WAR" and then apply this concept to get the follow up questions made to the candidates.

For example if "the war" is draining money from education then what was the problem BEFORE THE WAR? Bush has increased Federal spending on Edu. by more than $14 billion dollars each year over the last budget of the Clinton Administration. If Bush is "short changing" our children then what was the last Democratic Administration on record doing?

I heard commentary on the impact of the Supreme Court decision on voluntary school desegregation programs based on race. I heard Obama say that he is there because of Brown V Board....fine...I heard others say that quality education is the corner stone to a strong society.....fine. I did not hear any of them clearly articulate how having Black kids sit next to a White kid changes the condition of Black schools. (We all know that the flow of children is from Black to White schools. White students having been assigned to Black school have departed the public school system in high rates). Where as previously there were systematic racism where Black schools got second hand books and furniture and then a fraction of the budget than the White school in the same district. Many of the candidates drew upon Brown V Board but failed to articulate how TODAY we have the very same context as I noted above that puts Black students at risk. I believe personally (as a Black man) that there is some unspoken assumed inferiority of all Black schools as compared to all White schools...regardless of the wealth of the Black school system (Dekalb County GA and Prince Georges County, for example).

Lastly once again - As I saw the audience full of Civil Rights Leaders and liberal leaning activists I didn't understand how the increase in HIV infection among Blacks was put into the terms of how the "Government" would have responded if these were "White women" rather than what measures need to be taken by BLACK PEOPLE to insure that the infection rates are decreased.

Hillary Clinton and others acted as if there was no pre-Bush reference to base their highly imagined claims upon. You would swear that before Bush and before the War the Black community received so much funding for our problems that we had to turn it away.

The board asking the questions failed to bring that element of reality (how things were like for Blacks before Bush/Before the War) to the various candidates.

Sent by Ron B | 12:53 AM ET | 06-30-2007

Ron B:

Many people proposed interesting questions that we would like to have asked. Under the ground rules of the debate we were committed to ensuring that every candidate was asked every question, and that every candidate had the opportunity to answer first at least once. Given the time constraints there were many worthwhile areas we were unable to explore in greater depth, and unfortunately, the agreed upon format did not include time for follow-ups. The fact that all interesting and worthwhile questions were not asked certainly does not indicate that no one "bothered" to ask them, but rather that difficult choices had to be made. As to the question of who was seated in the audience--I don't know anything about that except to say that that my guests were all members of my wonderful staff and my wonderful interns.... Many of the other people I recognized, including members of the civil rights community I suspect were there because they had ties to Howard University, the host of the debate, as alumni/ae, trustees, donors or faculty.

Once again, all of us appreciate the many thoughtful listeners who posted questions to the site in advance of the debate, and gave us many good ideas to consider.

Sent by Michel Martin | 3:03 PM ET | 07-02-2007